Chapter 007

In the early morning hours, Heimdall drove his pick-up truck along the winding forestry service road while he spoke to his father on his bluetooth headset. Dawn was still several hours off.

“That’s right, we’re on the way there now.” Heimdall cracked his window open to help dissipate the condensation collecting on the inside of his windshield, and nodded to Freya to turn down the radio. Sandwiched in the front seat between Heimdall and her brother slumbering besode her, Freya reached forward and snapped off the car radio.

“I think you’re going to have to send someone up there,” Heimdall continued. “It’s the only way to get a read on anything that might be happening with the wolf.”

He navigated a particularly sharp turn, shifting his unsuspecting back-cab passengers. Magni’s head knocked into the window glass, and he cursed sharply.

“Sorry about that.” Heimdall glanced into the rearview mirror to see if his nephew was alright, and received a rude finger gesture in response. “No, I was talking to Magni,” he directed into the headset’s mouthpiece. He was silent a few moments longer, listening to his father’s directions on the other end.

Freya leaned over her brother to roll down the passenger side window. She hated the stuffiness of the cab, and she frequently got carsick, even in the front seat, if she wasn’t driving. All these winding roads, on little sleep and at shifting elevations, was a good recipe for impending vomit. Draping herself across Freyer, she practically hung her head out the window to get to the fresh air, hoping to settle her stomach.

“I don’t know how long it’s going to take. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” Heimdall sighed. He’d been standing ready to seek out the Yggdrasil ever since the Sitka Spruce had first showed signs of its nearing demise, back in 2006. Even after the tree finally succumbed to wind and old age a year later, they’d still had to wait. The tension had built in him, day after day, thinking of the tiny seedling, sprouting up somewhere in the world, completely vulnerable, without a watcher nearby. It had only been a week since his mother had at last gotten the vision of the young tree, now nearly a year old, having taken root again in the Pacific Northwest.

Lucky that they’d been so close by, that the Yggdrasil hadn’t jumped coasts, countries or even continents as it had before. They’d been in Norway when the last World Tree had faded from this world, and even with Frigga’s sight guiding them to the New World and the new World Tree, it had still taken them decades to navigate the expansive new territory and find the Sitka Spruce.

This time, the tree had sprung up again in its own backyard. But that didn’t mean Odin would be patient with the young Yggrdasil not being located immediately. Heimdall had been hunting every night, growing closer with every passing hour, but not making progress quick enough to placate his father. Now that there was a Berserker on the lose and dark Runic Magic being worked, every passing minute that they didn’t have the location of the tree was three minutes too long.

“Yes, an Oregon White Oak.” Heimdall yawned loudly as he pulled off the main forestry road onto a lesser dirt road leading deeper into the forest. “Managarm. That’s right.”

Freya pulled her head back into the car at the mention of the Moon Dog’s name. She looked up at Heimdall and gestured for him to hand off the call to her, but Heimdall shook her off.

“She’s sure.” Heimdall continued up the dirt road, following it between increasingly thick branches overhead. Coming to the end of the road, Heimdall slowed the truck and shifted it into park. Skadi and Freyer awoke with the sudden change in motion, and Magni opened the rear cab door and hopped out onto the bed of damp pine needles. Freya, Freyer and Skadi exited from the other side of the truck, ducking the low hanging branches. They gathered in front of the truck and waited.

“No, definitely don’t send Tyr,” Heimdall advised his father as he turned off the truck’s ignition and shut off the headlights. The last thing they needed was a disruption in the fragile peace between Loki and Tyr.

Try had nearly lost a hand in the initial feud over Loki’s son, Fenrir. That damnable wolfen beast had nearly ripped the pantheon in two. When Fenrir was still a pup, Thor had brought him to the great hall and tried to tame him, but that was before any of them understood what he was. Fenrir had grown into something between man and wolf and was compulsively ruled by the same chaotic soul that had plagued Loki for so long.

And then Frigga had foreseen Fenrir’s fated role in Ragnorok, the ultimate demise of them all. It had been lucky that Loki had been convinced to bind Fenrir himself, luckier still that he and Tyr had carefully, over time, forged a more abiding familial bond — despite Loki’s penchant for really inappropriate practical jokes. Like the time he got Thor drunk, dressed him up like a large and rather unattractive street walker, and then dumped him aboard a merchant ship whose crew hadn’t seen a woman or dry land in four months. It had taken Thor three and a half days to get back to port.

“Send Bragi and Sjofn,” Heimdall suggested. “And Thor, if you can spare him.” He knew his brother would leap at the opportunity for any kind of adventure — even if all it meant was a road-trip to Joseph to talk to the currently monastic Loki. Anything to get himself back into the game, and far far away from any and all photocopiers.

Heimdall pulled the keys from the ignition, opened the door and slid out from behind the steering wheel. “Listen, we’re here. I’ll give you an update as soon as there’s more information to share.”

He disconnected the call with a small tap to the earpiece, then pulled the device out of his ear and slid it into his jacket pocket. Laika leapt out of the back of the truck and paced around her master in an excited circle.

“Heading out to see Loki.” Skadi stepped out from beneath a low-hanging branch and met Heimdall’s eyes.

He nodded, and she shook her head.

“I don’t envy that lot.”

“No.” Heimdall closed the car door and walked past the group, heading deeper into the woods. The others fell into step behind him, Freya following close on his heels. After just a few minutes of walking, the tall trees thinned and opened onto a wide spread of young saplings, ranging from three to nearly six feet in height. And they seemed to go on forever.

“Hmm.” Freya sighed in consternation. “How many did you say there were? Six hundred?”

“That’s about right.” Heimdall stepped forward to one of the trees. Resting one hand on the slender trunk, he reached out and grasped a leaf between his fingers. “It will be harder to find it while it’s still so young. It could be any one of the trees in here.”

He watched his companions fan out into the stand of young trees, each one of them going from one tree to the next, looking for some sign of the new Yggdrasil. Heimdall sighed and shoved his hands in his jacket pocket. He had only limited sympathy for the Buddhist lamas who traveled far and wide in the years after each Dalai Lama’s death, looking for His Holiness’ next incarnation. They examined each child who showed promise, asking him questions and performing ritual tests to confirm their leader’s true identity. Somehow they always managed to find the next Dalai Lama, reborn once again.

But these trees couldn’t answer direct questions. They couldn’t be shown selections of bark and be asked which had belonged to them in their previous incarnation as the last Yggdrasil. He and Freya both had the ability to look into the trees, to taste its essence and so discover the Yggdrasil that way, but it was a time- and energy-consuming process. Even between the two of them, going through each of these six hundred trees one by one would take a good bit longer than this one night.

They moved slowly from tree to tree, gradually moving farther apart. With a smile to greet the new World Tree, Freya placed her loving hands on one narrow trunk. Her face then sank into a frown as she stepped away to the next tree, her expression brightening with hope again for each new tree she examined. Skadi got close to each specimen and sniffed at its bark, evening tasting a few of them with a quick flick of the tongue. She rolled the taste around in her mouth for a few seconds, shook her head, and moved on to the next.

“Oh, for the love of Huginn and Muninn!” Magni cursed and spat on the ground. He resisted the temptation to kick at the base of only the second tree he’d examined. He planted his fists firmly on his hips and turned to face Heimdall, now several meters away. “We’re never going to find the bloody tree this way.”

There was a dull thud as a small rock struck Magni in the back of the head.

“Hey!” Magni rubbed the base of his skull and spun around to find Freyer standing not too far away, arms crossed over his chest.

“Watch your speech, Magni.” Freyer’s mouth was hard. “You will not disrespect the Yggdrasil.”

Magni took in a deep breath, his chest puffing up with smoldering rage. “I will speak as I please, cousin.” He spoke slowly, emphasizing each syllable with an exaggerated bravado that he had little use for in the twenty-first century world of mortal men. He shrugged a shoulder in Freya’s direction, several yards to his right. “Running a martial arts school with your dried up priestess sister over here doesn’t make you any match for me, vanir.”

Freyer’s dark eyes narrowed at the challenge, and Magni smiled wryly. “What good’s a nature god in the world of technology, anyway? You can’t even call the elements anymore. It must eat away at you when it rains here,” Magni chuckled darkly. “Or do you just tell yourself that you’re the one who opened up the skies?”

Freyer dropped his hands to his sides and stalked angrily toward Magni, quickly closing the distance between them. “You will not disrespect the Yggrdasil,” he spat as he moved. “You will not disrespect my sister. And you will not disrespect me.” He pushed Magni backward with both hands, grunting deep in his chest with the effort.

Magni stumbled a few paces to the rear, then regained his balance. He looked across at Freyer and started to laugh. “Stupid little vanir. Your kind should have been wiped from the face of the Earth long ago.” Magni took a deep breath and started his war cry as he lunged at the smaller, more slender Freyer, but Heimdall came charging in from one side, intercepting his nephew and bearing the full brunt of his assault. The two tumbled to the ground at Freyer’s feet, and the others quickly gathered around them.

Magni struggled to get to his feet, but Heimdall grabbed him — one hand gripping the shoulder of his jacket, the other buried deep in Magni’s thick beard — and pulled him back down to the ground.

“Unhand me, uncle!” Magni bellowed. “Someone needs to teach this undeserving nature sprite a lesson.”

Heimdall kneed his nephew in the kidneys and forced him onto his back in the dirt. Magni struggled against him, but Heimdall managed to climb on top of him and sat squarely down on the other’s chest.

Heimdall sat for a moment, trying to reclaim his breath. In a fair fight, he was no match for Magni — no one was, god or otherwise. He’d only been able to best him because he’d caught him off-guard.

“Teach the nature sprite a lesson?” Heimdall panted, looking down into Magni’s reddening face. “What kind of talk is that among kinsmen? The aesir and vanir settled their differences long ago.”

Magni tried to roll first to one side, then the other, in an attempt to free himself, but Heimdall moved with him, keeping him pinned down. “Let me go! This isn’t your fight. He started it!” Magni pointed and angry finger up at Freyer, who just shrugged and then started to laugh.

“Mature words from the high and mighty aesir,” he sneered. Skadi rested a corrective shoulder on her son’s arm, but he just shook her off and took a step closer to his incapacitated rival. “Always so big and burly and completely useless. Never having the guts to step out from your father’s thunderous shadow.”

Heimdall shot an angry look up at his cousin. “Enough!” He sighed angrily. “I don’t care who started what. I don’t care what you’re arguing about, or why, or how far it goes back.” He slapped Magni’s raised fist back to the ground, then ran a hand through his thick hair. It was the tree. Still so young and tender, it couldn’t yet contain the full wisdom and order of the Yggdrasil, and with the strain of their discontent — working menial jobs in a materialist society that worshipped double-decker burritos and Tivo over the old or even the new gods, on top of this fresh threat from Managarm — they were losing control of themselves.

“Everyone just take a deep breath, all right?” Still sitting atop Magni, Heimdall rested his forearms on his knees and looked at the ground. In the silence, he felt at least some of the tension drain out of the surrounding group, and beneath him, Magni exhaled and lay flat on his back in surrender.

“That’s better.” Heimdall crawled off of Magni and climbed to his feet. “We need to keep our wits about us, not only on this hunt for the tree, but also as we try to fit these pieces together.” He reached out a hand and helped pull Magni to his feet.

Skadi stepped forward to stand between Freyer and Magni. She looked first at one, then the other. “Whatever bad blood existed between you, it is long since passed.” She narrowed her eyes and looked out at the young trees, her gaze then sweeping skyward at the low-hanging clouds and the moon barely peeking out through the breaks between them.

“We have become vulnerable to our own magic,” she continued. “The Moon Dog uses it against us. Will we fall so easily into his hands?” Her eyes flashed again on her son, and then on Magni, her expression fierce in the broken moonlight. “Do you allow yourselves to be his puppets? Will you so willingly be pawns in his game?”

Magni growled low between clenched teeth, but his scowl had softened. Freyer titled his head to one side and nodded at his mother.

Heimdall cleared his throat. “Right, then. Let’s get back to work.” He pointed off toward the far end of the field of young trees. “Freyer, why do you start skirting that edge over there.” Heimdall turned completely around and gestured Magni toward the other end. “And you take that side.”

Freyer and Magni both frowned slightly, then shrugged and headed off toward their appointed sections. Skadi offered Heimdall a glimmer of a smile before slipping between a pair of saplings, examining them both for signs of the young Yggdrasil.

*****

It was dawn before they reached Joseph, in the Northeastern corner of Oregon. Bragi had driven his old Subaru slowly through town, looking for a 24-hour Starbucks. He’d finally pulled up at the Motley Brew Coffee Company, waited for them to open, then ducked inside for three black coffees — in the biggest to-go cups they had — along with a bag full of muffins and assorted pastries.

The aroma of the steaming coffee woke Sjofn in the passenger seat, and she gratefully accepted the cup Bragi offered her. After pulling out a couple of muffins for himself and Siofn, Bragi tossed the bag into the backseat, where it landed squarely on Thor’s chest. The sudden proximity of food roused the slumbering giant, who sat up too fast and smacked his head on the car’s ceiling.

“Oof!” Thor rubbed at the top of his head, then pounded the ceiling above, leaving a sizable dent. “Stupid horseless machinery.” He made several thundering, retching noises that sounded as though he might be trying to dislodge one of his own lungs — what qualified for Thor as clearing his throat in the morning — then sniffed at the contents of the paper bag. He frowned.

“No jelly?”

Bragi handed a cup of coffee back to him. “No, sorry. Just the cream-filled, some cake doughnuts and a couple of glazed bear claws.”

Grumbling to himself, Thor pulled out a custard-filled pastry and took a huge bite out of it. Custard oozed out the sides of his mouth and dripped down onto his jeans. He muttered something about Eastern Oregonians being wretched creatures trapped in the dark ages of pastry performance while he chewed, then took a massive gulp of hot coffee. If it burned the roof of his mouth, he never let on.

Bragi started up the car and pulled out onto the road, following the main drive out of town toward Loki’s cabin, where the old god of chaos isolated himself from time to time.

Since the clan had relocated to the Pacific Northwest, it wasn’t unusual for Loki to abscond to his mountain retreat for months or even years at a time. Of all the gods, he still retained the most of his abilities — but rarely had control over them. For the Viking god of mayhem and destruction, this should have suited him just fine, but he had grown more sentimental as the decades and centuries had passed. He longed for the company of his kin, or at least to immerse himself in human community.

And he found it disquieting not to have any order, even in the midst of his own chaos.

Ice cream melted in the freezers at grocery stores when he tried to go shopping. Loaded guns went off by themselves when he got too close. He’d gotten a mild headache in the middle of a bank once, and triggered the fire alarms of every building on the block. Traffic lights malfunctioned as he crossed intersections. Cell phones had a nasty tendency to burst into flames in his presence — as a result, he’d accidentally set at least a dozen unsuspecting people’s hair or clothing on fire. The official story blamed the trouble on overheating cell phone batteries, but Loki and the others knew the truth.

And even with the peace that had been negotiated between himself and the others, he still never felt completely comfortable around Odin and his clan. Plus, there was the matter of Fenrir. As long as he lived, there’d been tension with Odin, but if he died…. Loki would have outlasted all of his children.

Bragi reached into the back seat and held out an open hand. “How about another pastry up here?”

Thor popped the last bit of his sixth doughnut into his mouth, crumpled the empty bag into a ball, and dropped into Bragi’s hand. Bragi pulled his arm forward again, frowned at the paper ball and tossed it to the floorboards at Sjofn’s feet.

“Classic,” she muttered, pulling her auburn curls into a tight ponytail that she secured with a rubber band. “How much further?”

“Not far at all.” Bragi made a left onto a dirt road that wound around a steep hill. Spiraling about three quarters of the way up, Bragi turned right up an even steeper dirt driveway, finally coming to a stop beneath a level patch that had been carved out beneath a trio of pine trees.

Bragi, Sjofn and Thor sat silently in the car, looking at out Loki’s cabin. It was a rustic structure built from old trees that had gratefully given up their wood for the home of one of the old gods, when the trees had still recognized them. They had been the last to acknowledge the ancient deities for what they once had been. But no more. Now, it was only the World Tree that knew them, and even it had to be reminded from time to time.

The cabin was largely nondescript, the unpainted wood frame darkened by weather and time. There was a neat flower-bed to the left of the wide steps leading up to a porch that ran the length of the front of the house. Herb bushes the size of boulders grew wild in an open area several yards from the front steps. Rosemary, lavendar and honeysuckle perfumed the air whenever the sun shone down on his property.

Loki had kept up the place rather well, though he wasn’t as reclusive as he thought he was. Regular grocery deliveries were made on a weekly basis, ever since his last trip to the store in town when even the mechanical scales in the produce section had gone kaplooey. Neighboring kids liked to pick fruits and berries from his property spring through fall, and he often made them fresh lemonade to enjoy while they filled their baskets with figs, raspberries, apples and plums. Loki even had an informal recipe exchange with several of the “mountain cottage wives” — as they called themselves — who had homes on the same hill. He did still have to hike down a ways to pick up his mail, which he did every couple of days or so, but the area UPS and FedEx delivery drivers knew the route to this cabin by heart.

“Right.” Bragi pushed open the driver’s side door and climbed out of the car, stretching his arms up overhead as he tried to work out the kinks in his spine that had settled in after driving all night. He glanced across the top of the car at Sjofn as she got out on her side.

“You’re driving back.”

She titled her head and smiled at her nephew. “Good. I’ll make sure we stop for some decent food, then.”

Thor lumbered out of the back seat and slammed the door shut. He stomped around the car for a few minutes, complaining that his feet had fallen asleep, then pronounced that he was ready to call on Loki.

As if on cue, Loki opened the front door. For someone who left so much bedlam and disorder in his wake, he was surprisingly unimposing in the flesh. He was a modest 5’9 or 5’10 in height, wearing loose-fitting denim jeans and a faded corduroy shirt that probably used to be black. His steel gray eyes were more curious than intimidating, and wavy salt-and-pepper hair hung loose, almost touching his shoulders.

Loki stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and leaned against the doorjamb. “From the looks on your faces, I’d say this wasn’t exactly a social visit.”

Sjofn straightened her shoulders and walked toward him. “I’m afraid not, old friend.” She stopped at the bottom of the wooden stairs leading up to the porch, then glanced out at the herb garden. Turning back to Loki, she smiled up at him with a quick wink. “I’m glad to see someone still keeps up the old ways.”

Loki laughed as she climbed the stairs. “You know that was never my art. I just like a little rosemary in my bread every now and again.”

He opened his arms and took her into a strong but brief hug. Sjofn pulled away from Loki and made room for Thor and Bragi as they climbed up the steps. Loki looked into their stern expressions and sighed.

“I suppose you should come inside.”

Loki was a warm if frugal host, having adopted the more thrifty gastronomic ways of modern men. The main room of the cabin served as kitchen, dining room, and den with a short hallway leading to the single bedroom and bath, but through the windows overlooking the back porch, the place offered a magnificent view of the upward sloping back yard and its great trees adorned in autumn colors.

Loki set down two pots of strong coffee and herbal tea on the coffee table and let them pour for themselves while he fetched plates of sliced apples, wafer cookies and homemade biscuits fresh out of the oven.

Sjofn tilted her head and looked up at Loki as he set the plates down on the low table before her. He smiled weakly and shrugged his shoulders. “I just had a feeling I’d have company this morning.”

Thor struggled to get comfortable in the worn, mission-style chair facing the end of the table. He was simply too large for regular furniture. He wedged himself between the exposed oak armrests and heaved a sigh. “What would have given you that idea.”

Loki settled into a simple rocking chair opposite him. “Something in the air didn’t feel quite right.” He pored himself a cup of tea and popped an apple slice into his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully, resting back into the rocker. “And also my postman yesterday got halfway to my mailbox, then suddenly stripped naked and dashed off into the woods. Left the whole hill’s mail just sitting there in the dirt.”

“Berserker,” Thor grunted. Loki responded with a slow, unconcerned nod.

Bragi put down his cup of coffee and leaned forward in his chair. “So, what did you do?”

Loki pursed his lips and glanced out the window behind Sjofn at the brightening morning sky. “I picked up the mail and delivered it myself.”

Sjofn caught the glimmer in Loki’s eye and the hint of a smirk at the corners of his mouth. He was baiting Thor, and it worked every time.

The god of thunder tried to launch himself out of his seat, but he was wedged in pretty tight. All he managed to do was lift the chair a couple of inches up off the hardwood floor and then slam it back down again when he gave up trying to stand. “You’ve got a bloody Berserker running around in your yard, and all you can think to do is deliver the mail?!”

Thor’s face was beet red, his large hands grasping the armrests and threatening to pull the chair into pieces.

Loki raised a hand in acquiescence. “Would you please try to keep your temper in check? I’m afraid it will be the death of my furniture.”

He took a long drink of hot tea and let the warmth of it slide down his throat and spread across his chest. “Of course I recognized the Berserker. But there wasn’t anything for me to do.” He gestured across the table to Thor. “I figured that was more your department.”

Thor nodded, the flush on his cheeks fading. Loki glanced between Bragi and Sjofn. “I gather there have been others then.”

Sjofn poured herself a cup of tea. “One that we know of. One of Odin’s students.”

Loki abruptly stopped rocking in his chair, then resumed the motion as he sucked his breath in through his teeth. “That’s a young one.”

“Only by today’s standards,” Bragi offered.

Loki took another sip and tea and regarded Sjofn on the couch beneath the front window. “What news from Frigga?”

Sjofn shook her head. “She hasn’t seen the Berserker herself. Even if she could, she might not be able to get a read on him.” Sjofn glanced nervously at Thor, then looked back at Loki. “The student awoke to his Berserker right in front of Odin.”

Loki raised his eyebrows. “And?”

“And nothing. The Berserker didn’t so much as acknowledge him, as though he wasn’t even there.” Sjofn lowered her head and sipped at her tea to keep from breaking out into anxious tears.

Loki reached for another slice of apple and bit into it. “So…” he chewed as he spoke, “you don’t know if that’s because someone else has called the Berserkers — and not very efficiently at that — or if you’ve all finally lost every last shred of divinity and are now nothing more than mortal beings.”

Bragi let out a startled squeak, which he tried to cover with a cough and a long gulp of coffee. He swallowed hard and cleared his throat. “Well, given those options, I suppose we should be happy that it’s the former.”

Loki opened his mouth and was about to speak, but Thor leaned forward in his chair — with the wooden frame creaking in protest every inch of the way — and blurted out, “It’s Managarm.”

“Managarm,” Loki echoed. He narrowed his eyes and nibbled the edge of a flaky biscuit, rolling the possibilities over in his mind. He glanced across the coffee table and met Thor’s gaze. “You’re here about Fenrir then, aren’t you?”

Chapter 006

Outside Olympia, Washington, the wolves sunned themselves in their enclosures. Sunshine was increasingly rare this time of year, and the wolves — some of them dog-hybrids, others full-bred that had been kept as pets or rescued injured from the wild — lay contended in the dirt. They were mostly in mated pairs, some in smaller pack groups. They’d been fed for the day and had gotten the latest round of veterinary check-ups. The rest of the day was for lounging around, occasionally deigning to howl on request for the tour groups that came through Wolf Haven or casually lifting their heads to “smile” for the many cameras.

It wasn’t a bad life, but it wasn’t like the wild, either.

A lump of dark gray and black fur stretched out beneath a young pine tree, Fenrir growled in his sleep, awakening his enclosure mate, Alice.

He wasn’t particularly fond of Alice, with all of her preening and posing. She actually flirted with the human visitors, coming up to the fence and batting her pretty eyes at them. It wasn’t food she was after — assuming any of the visitors could have snuck any treats into the sanctuary to begin with. But she wanted to get them excited, to hear them coo and fawn over her, to make the children laugh and exclaim. A wolf-labrador hybrid, she’d been kept as a pet for three years — and had destroyed four sofas, two backyard fences (one electric), three sets of draperies, and two of the family cats — before she’d been turned over to Wolf Haven as a failed house pet.

But Alice missed her human family. Fenrir always stood back from the fence, watching her perform for the people, while he shook his coat in disgust. It was bad enough being enclosed, kept, even in a sanctuary such as this one. It was worse being put on display for the paying public. But at least Alice wasn’t as bad as the one they’d previously paired him with, Innara. She’d been impossibly insecure and had clung to him night and day, unable to be even two feet away from him. She still haunted his dreams, but at least then he’d had the satisfaction of ripping her limb from limb and ripping out her throat.

Where he came from, that’s how such weakness and instability was dealt with.

Good thing he’d kept his instincts reigned in. If he’d given in to such fantasies outside of his dreams, he would have been put down.

Put down. Since when did humans exercise such dominion over wolves?

Fenrir shook again in his sleep, feet twitching as he ran free through his dreams. Alice got up lazily from her perch on a grassy mound and ambled over to him. She sniffed at Fenrir’s ears, then at his nose, backing off only when he bared his teeth in semi-consciousness. A new tour group rounded the corner, and Alice trotted off toward the fence to put on another show.

Fenrir lifted his head. He watched Alice’s pathetic bid for attention, then got up from his comfortable spot in the sun and retreated deeper into the enclosure, out of sight of the humans. He heard a few disappointed voices as he skulked off, and that made him smile. Safely hidden behind another small hill and a clump of shrubbery, Fenrir shook the dust from his thick coat and stretched out on the soft bed of dying grass and dry pine needles. He lifted his nose skyward and gazed up at the quarter moon already in the sky.

“FEN!”

The wolf peaked his head out from behind the grassy mound toward the fence. One of his keepers, the one who called herself Tara, stood at the front of yet another infernal tour group. Alice stood before her, wagging her bushy tail and pawing at the air, to the delight of the children. Fenrir blinked lazily at Tara.

“Fen, come on out here!” she sang to him, hoping to entice him out for the entertainment of the visitors.

Not bloody likely. Fenrir laid his head down, still within site of the humans at the fence, just to taunt them. He’d make himself just barely visible, out of reach, and then would completely ignore them.

“Fen!” Tara pleaded with him. “He’s not the most sociable of wolves,” Fenrir heard Tara explain to her tour group. “But he is one of the most handsome.”

That brought a smile to his furry face. Even in this animal form, he was a sight to behold. Mostly black, with a black and gray mask, and a dark gray patch on his chest. Shades of gray capped his large feet and tipped his full tail. No one at Wolf Haven had seen marking like his before, or so they kept telling their visitors. Fenrir was like no wolf they’d ever hosted before at the sanctuary.

If they only knew, Fenrir whispered to himself, sometimes with a chuckle, other times in lament.

He looked back up at the moon again and let out a small wail.

“Good boy, Fen!” Tara called out to him. “Why don’t you come out and see us, and we can howl together?”

Fenrir rested his head back down and grimaced. He hated being little more than a trained monkey — or in this case, little better than the semi-domesticated wolf-dogs that made up the majority of Wolf Haven’s residents. He missed the wild hunt, missed howling full-throated at the moon, missed the look of terror in the eyes of the humans he’d terrorized. Mostly, though, he missed the gods, and the fear and hatred he had inspired in them.

Which is what had landed him here in the first place. After centuries of roaming free as a wolf who hunted on two legs — and inspiring local lore across more than one continent — he’d been consigned here by his coward of a father. Forever stuck as only half of his true nature, and subjected to the indignation of being put on display for paying guests. He cursed Loki’s name daily.

“FEN!” Tara called to him again. “Fenrir!”

A small shiver ran down the length of the wolf’s spine at the sound of his full name. But it’s what he heard next that had him prick up his ears.

“Fenrir?” asked a heavily accented male voice. “That’s the slayer of Odin, in Viking legend.”

Fenrir sniffed at the air, trying to pick up the man’s scent. This was no one of Nordic blood, nor one of the old gods. No one he recognized. Fenrir opened his eyes and peaked around the grassy mound again.

“I think that’s right,” Tara answered, her back to the pen. She was standing directly in front of the questioner, blocking him from Fenrir’s view. And there was stupid Alice, prancing up and down at the fence, pandering to the crowd.

“A lot of our wolves and hybrids have Native American names, others from different branches of mythology,” Tara continued. “But we keep whatever names they come to us with. Fenrir was already named when he first came to Wolf Haven. He was transferred here from another sanctuary a few years back.”

Fenrir growled low in his throat, too quietly for the humans to hear. He’d been passed from one facility to another for too long to remember. Every time the end of a normal wolf’s life-span drew near, he was transferred once again to make a new start. He’d been called Blackie, Timber, Nightmare, Coal, Onyx, Jet, Spalding, even the humiliating Cocoa.

At least this time they’d given him back his own name.

“That’s a dangerous name for a wolf,” the man responded in the sing-song lilt of the Indian subcontinent.

Tara laughed, and Fenrir saw her thick shoulder and upper back shake under her thick, blonde ponytail. “No, our Fennie is a real sweetheart. Aren’t you, Fen?”

She turned and caught him looking at them, then she laughed again. “See? He’s just as curious about you as you are about him.”

Tara took another step toward the fence and started pleading with him again, her movement just enough that Fenrir could get a look at the short, dark-skinned man behind her.

“Yes, he looks like a Fenrir,” the man said, gesturing toward the wolf. Then the man shook his head, never taking his eyes off of Fenrir. “Dangerous. Not a friendly name, not at all.”

Chapter 005

Heimdall led the group through the woods as a light rain began to fall. With Laika by his side, he felt more energized to be outside again among the trees, breathing in the cool, crisp air and feeling the crunch of pine needles beneath his feet as his boots pressed down into the damp soil. He was grateful for his night vision, one of the few gifts they had all retained — at least so far — as the rest of their powers had slowly deserted them.

He followed the path he had made the night before, and as the trees opened to form a clearing, the others fanned out around him — Skadi and Magni to his right and the twins, Freya and Freyer, to his left.

“This is as far as I’ve gotten.” Heimdall stepped into the center of the clearing. He looked for the moon overhead but found only clouds and the gentle drizzle of Oregon rain in autumn falling down onto his face. Laika danced around the grove, nosing under the low shrubs, no doubt looking for more furry prey.

“It was here that I felt that chill move through me.” He gestured toward Freya. “The magic that you suspect is being worked.”

Freya moved into the center of the clearing to stand next to her cousin. She turned slowly in a full circle, taking in the energies beyond the sights, scents and sounds of the forest. She might not have had all of the same strengths she’d commanded as a deity, but she was still a skilled shaman.

“We have not been tracked,” Skadi offered from the periphery of the grove. “I’m certain of it.”

Completing her surveillance, Freya turned toward Heimdall. “Can you still feel it, standing here now?”

He frowned down on her. “The magic?”

Heimdall looked into her quiet, narrowed eyes and nearly laughed. “Oh, sorry. You mean the tree.” He crouched down and laid his palm flat against the ground. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath in and listened to the vibrations beneath the surface of the soil. Filtering out the familiar chatter of the domestic trees and the occasional, sharp static from the power station and cell towers several miles away, Heimdall tuned into the tender, hopeful pulse of the young sapling.

He opened his eyes and looked up at Freya. “Yes. It’s close.” He stood up and wiped the dirt off of his hand onto the front of his jacket. “But I’m not sure how close.” He glanced down at the ground and sighed. “I’m not even sure what species of tree it has taken form in.” He raised his eyes and met Freya’s level gaze. “Not yet anyway.”

Freya nodded at her mother and sat down on the ground, her legs crossed beneath her. Taking her daughter’s cue, Skadi formed the others into a circle around Freya, facing out toward the night and ringing the shaman in their protection. Slipping the canvas rucksack off of her back, Freya reached into one of the pockets and pulled out a plastic baggie containing one the roots she cultivated in her garden. She retrieved a utility knife from her jeans pocket, unfolded it and sliced off a small sliver of the root.

Laika darted into the circle, sniffed once at Freya face, and then lay down behind her, the wolf-dog’s spine pressed against Freya’s, Laika’s eyes and ears alert to any danger or intrusion. Freya returned the baggie and knife to her rucksack, then placed the small slice of root on her tongue. She closed her eyes and gently rested her hands in her lap.

The others stood at the four corners around her, each facing one of the cardinal directions. Magni, facing South, whispered to Heimdall to the East.

“Is there something else we’re supposed to be doing? Like an evocation of something?” Magni shuffled his feet in place. “It’s been a while since I’ve done this.”

Heimdall looked over his shoulder at his nephew, then faced forward again and shook his head. “We’re just holding the space. Leave the magic to Freya. We’re just here to keep out the stray squirrel or dragon.”

Magni snorted. “Dragons.”

Skadi, at the North point on the compass, shushed them both. “Boys.”

Magni squared his stance and turned back to face South, his patron direction of fire and summer. He closed his eyes for a moment and breathed in the vague hint of burning warmth, feeling the faint trickle of power that had once flowed through his veins. But it wasn’t nearly enough. He might yet be a formidable force among mortal men, stronger even than his own father, but he felt a pathetic weakling in the memory of what he had once been. Maybe Thor had it right. Let the magic come. Let the Berserkers awaken and roam. There would be time to track them down and bend them to the gods’ will once more, after the gods had managed to restore themselves. Find the young tree, sure, but use it, don’t just keep an eye on it. Harness the World Tree’s power to resurrect the old pantheon and the old ways.

Freya felt the subtle influence of the root go to work. She’d brought the plant — which she called Andlang, for the second of the three heavens — back with her from her studies in South America a century or two earlier. The others might still be struggling with the decline of godhood, but Freya was quite enjoying herself. Without the pressures of the pantheon — and its hierarchy and responsibilities both mundane and esoteric — she had been free to study and explore. She’d traveled the world, learning from the masters of other traditions, from men and women who worshipped other gods, and sometimes who worshipped no gods at all. No longer bound by her duty to promote love and fertility among her divine kinsmen or the mortal Nordic tribes, she cultivated her other innate gifts for mysticism. If she could, she would pour her entire being into the Earth herself.

Her breath quickened as she felt the buzz of snake-like energy coil itself around her spine, curling upward out of the soil, entwining with Freya’s nerve centers and reaching up through the crown of her skull to grasp through the overcast skies at the stars above. She felt the pulse of the Earth throbbing through her. Until she had studied with the shamans of Brazil, she had envied Heimdall’s subtle listening skills, the way her cousin seemed to so easily tune in and hear the planet’s hidden language.

Freya shifted where she sat, resting her palms flat against the ground by her sides. A small smile brightened her face as she felt the living energy of the Earth — swirling with individual identities and personalities of all who walked, flew over, or made their home within the planet, all the while underscored by an unmistakable, unifying vitality. The electricity of the Earth tickled her palms. These journeys into the soul of the planet always made her want to laugh with the sheer joy of communion.

She took a deep breath, grounding herself, sending energetic roots down into the soil to anchor herself firmly in place. She sent tendrils of her consciousness out onto the collective network of tree roots, every tree connected to every other through mingling and intertwined roots. She had learned to speak their language, not only to listen and learn, but to ask questions and receive active guidance as well.

Let Thor and the others lament the pantheon’s decline. Freya had never felt more at peace.

She frowned slightly as she homed in on the quiet, empty roots of the dead tree. Forgetting her physical body in the forest, surrounded by her kinfolk and supported by the warm, furry weight of Heimdall’s Laika, she followed the trail of cold, underground branches back to the decaying Sitka Spruce. She tried to push her way to the surface, to lift her consciousness up out of the soil to commune with the stump of the old tree, but the way was sluggish and heavy. Death and decay had taken hold, blocking her path. She had no direct access.

Freya backtracked, retreating along the lines of dead root to the previous junction, where the roots of a nearby evergreen hadn’t yet completely recoiled from those of the Sitka Spruce. She launched herself along this new, living root system, refreshed by the speed and springy energy of the younger tree, which she estimated to be only about six decades old. There was a surge of excitement within the tree at her approach. She zipped up its roots toward the trunk, where she waited at the base, asking for the evergreen’s permission to mingle with its memories and awareness beneath its bark.

But the tree pushed her back. Freya felt the evergreen’s trepidation. She frowned at the mixture of longing and anxiety. Freya backed off slightly, reassuring the tree and asking how she might be of service to it. She felt the evergreen relax, but not enough to let her in. Instead, it pushed a recent memory in her direction, and Freya’s own body shook with every touch of the chainsaw, with the soul-rending cracks of wood from the intense wind storms, even with the small pieces of bark that small children had peeled away from its hide. She felt the tree bleed, its sap trickling down from open wounds. A single tear slid down Freya’s cheek.

Then she shuddered at the vision the tree threw at her. She saw the deserted parking lot, just hours before, and the arrival of the beat-up truck. She saw the man with the handsaw.

“Ungh,” she moaned aloud as she recognized the intruder. The tree had no ability to register facial features, but Freya would know the gait and the aura of one of her own anywhere. Fulla had been right. One of the Old Ones was up to something. Freya moaned again.

Laika shifted nervously at the sound, and Heimdall stole a look over his shoulder. “Shh,” he reassured the wolf-hybrid.

Laika settled back down, lending her strength and comfort to Freya on her journey. Freya’s body stiffened and she whimpered quietly as the tree showed her the slab of the World Tree being sawn off.

She felt the bile rise in her throat at this abomination, especially at the hands of one who fully understood his sacrilege. She shuddered at every stroke of the saw. But she had to stay focused, if this was going to work. She tensed her shoulders, drawing the anger and indignation up out of her body, and then released it onto the air. She will relaxation into her hands, which had balled into fists.

Freya inhaled and sighed audibly, shifting her body slightly as she mentally thanked the evergreen for sharing its memories with her. She rode the tree’s roots back to the dead tendrils that had once fed life and sustenance to the World Tree, and she paused. Laying her energetic body out over the underground network of the Sitka Spruce, she invoked the ancient tune that called the shades back from Bilrost, the bridge spanning the river that separated the world of mortal men from the world of the dead.

The Yggdrasil was not yet fully formed in its new incarnation. The tree was young yet, its power scattered, and she gambled there was at least a small part of it hanging out by the bridge. Reaching out for the dead ends of the great tree’s roots, Freya opened herself as a beacon and a sponge, to call forth whatever remnant of the World Tree might yet be lingering and to absorb this energy into herself.

The cold of the dead roots sparked briefly, and Freya felt an itinerant piece of the Yggdrasil’s soul rush forward and bind with her, before she knew what happened. In a dizzying flash, she felt herself pulled along a spectacular blue-white thread of blinding light shooting through the collective root network, traveling back toward the grove of trees, miles away from the corpse of the Sitka Spruce, where the old gods stood vigil over Freya’s body, zipping beneath the soil on which they stood, past old-growth stands and the young saplings they were fostering, spiraling headlong through charred earth. Suddenly, she was motionless, floating free.

Freya took a moment to gain her bearings. How far was she now from the grove? In which direction had she traveled? What was this place? A gentle, familiar pulse sang softly to her, and Freya found herself surrounded by glistening light. She nearly wept as she realized she was nestled in the tender root structure of the new World Tree. Opening herself, she released the element of the Yggdrasil’s spirit she had called back from Bilrost, offering it as a gift to the sapling.

The gift was accepted, and Freya felt a dancing light curve up and down along the length of her spine.

And then she was yanked backward, torn away from the young tree.

Freya’s body shook. Laika whimpered and pressed her head against the former goddess’ back. Freya’s torso convulsed and she pitched forward, opening her eyes just in time to catch herself against the damp soil.

Heimdall was immediately at her side, a steadying hand resting on her shoulder.

“Freya?” He pulled her back up to a seated position, but she stared wide-eyed out at the surrounding forest. “Freya!” He shook her hard.

She blinked, looked down at the dirt on her hands, and then titled her head to face Heimdall. Her mouth was hard, her eyes full of tears.

“Managarm.” She wanted to spit the feel of his name out of her mouth, after having witnessed his atrocity. She should have known it would be one of the Wolves. They’d always seemed too comfortable on the periphery in the old days, scheming and laughing among themselves, grumbling about their responsibilities and lack of reward when it came to honor their duties. But she’d never dreamed it would come to this. Not even Managarm had such ambition.

Freya bent forward and allowed her tears to spill onto the ground. “It’s Managarm. He’s the one who stole from the Sitka Spruce.”

The others crowded around her, with Freyer and Heimdall crouched down by her sides. Freyer wrapped a strong arm around his sister’s shoulder.

“Are you sure you’re not mistaken?”

Freya shook her head, not bothering to look up. “It was him. There is no doubt.” She brushed the dirt off her hands onto her jeans. “He used his saw and took from the Yggdrasil.”

Magni towered over her, arms crossed over his chest. “Why would Managarm do such a thing?”

Freya rubbed at her temples, the images the evergreen had shown her still burned on her brain. It was simply too much, and it made her head hurt. “Ragnorok,” she whispered.

A silent shudder ran through her companions. Even Laiki shifted uneasily, getting up from her spot at Freya’s back to nuzzle beneath one of the Heimdall’s arms.

Skadi stood tall before her daughter. “He seeks the tree.”

Freya nodded slowly, then her eyes grew wide and she turned again to Heimdall. “I’ve found it. I mean, I’ve seen it. The tree.” She took a breath and wiped the tears from her eyes, smudging her cheeks with bits of soil still clinging to her fingers.

“It’s not far from here, I’m not sure exactly.” She glanced around the grove, trying to discern in what direction the new Yggdrasil might lie. If only the young tree hadn’t pulled her in so quickly. “Maybe a couple of miles, but it is here.” She sniffed, and her face brightened. “But I can tell you this. It’s an Oregon White Oak.”

Freyer smiled and hugged his sister tight. “That’s good work. That will make the tree much easier to find.”

Skadi frowned. “I just hope we’re able to get to it before Managarm does.”

Shifting his weight between his feet, Magni tightened his arms across his chest. “Cursed moon dog,” he spat in a low voice. “Even if he succeeds, it will mean the downfall of us all.” But if he were to get close enough to his goal and fail, things would be much, much worse.

Heimdall sighed, his jaw tight. Freya titled her face toward him. “Be grateful for this news. Now we can find the tree.”

Heimdall shook his head. “Maybe.” He stood up and Laika danced nervously around him as he paced a few yards away. “There’s a stand of young Oregon White Oak, about four-and-a-half miles from here.”

Freya’s face brightened. “That’s it then. That has to be where the Yggdrasil now grows.”

“You don’t understand.” He rested his hands on his hips. “There are about 600 trees in that stand. All Oregon White Oak. All about the right age and the right size. It was a Forestry Service project last year, after a forest fire wiped out the area. The Yggdrasil could be any one of them.”

Chapter 004

Heimdall was the last to arrive.

He dutifully wiped his muddy boots on the bristly door mat before pressing down on the door latch and swinging the massive door open. Enticing aromas of roasted chicken and lamb and stewed vegetables greeted him, mingled with the more solemn sounds of worried voices. He shook the rain off his jacket before entering the current incarnation of the lodge that his family had built nearly seventy years prior.

Heimdall stepped inside and closed the door behind him. On the few feet of all-weather carpeting just inside the front doorway, he stooped to untie and slip off his heavy boots, then reached into the coat closet to hang up his damp jacket and retrieve a pair of sheepskin boots — in deference to his mother. He’d never had to worry about tracking dirt or mud into the longhouse or the lodge before the past century or so, but she’d become a self-described “domestic goddess” — a term she always laughed at, being an old deity herself — and fully expected the rest of the clan to participate in homemaking, rather than leaving every last effort to her.

He padded down the oak flooring of the hallway toward the kitchen and contiguous rec room that served as the family’s main gathering spot.

Drawing nearer the smells of the food cooking in the kitchen, Heimdall rubbed his bare chin. The only time he ever missed his beard was when he was in this house, surrounded by old friends and family and the familiar dishes — though they tasted somewhat different these days. The ingredients from the original recipes weren’t always available here in the States — some of the old herbs had long since died out, and the pasteurization process left an odd taste to the butter. But his mother had adapted and invented new dishes that still satisfied the voracious Norse appetite.

Tonight, his mother had not disappointed. Heimdall stepped into the kitchen and picked up the last empty plate at the end of the counter. There were at least a dozen dishes that had already been picked over by the rest of the clan, but there was still plenty left for him and probably a full complement of Vikings.

He looked across the massive island counter that divided the kitchen from the rec room to the black leather couches, chairs, and divans where many of his surviving siblings and other kin sat feasting. Frigga looked up from her plate and smiled at her son as she dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a linen napkin.

Heimdall swallowed a chuckle. The sight of any Nordic god using a napkin always seemed so incongruous to him, even after these many centuries of living among more civilized peoples.

Frigga rose from her seat and carried her half-empty plate toward the kitchen. “Heimdall,” she cooed, stretching out a hand to touch his cheek. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

He nodded toward the others, silent save for the loud sounds of chewing and the occasional grunt. “I can see that.”

Frigga looked back at the collected clan. Odin loaded a hefty spoonful of potatoes into his mouth, then wiped his sleeve across his lips. Frigga frowned. “Ugh. Barbarians, aren’t they?”

Heimdall couldn’t help but laugh. “Mother… We are barbarians.

She shrugged him off. “Were.” She crinkled her nose and watched her husband eat. “At least they’re using utensils.”

Heimdall moved around the counting, beginning to pile food onto his plate. “So why the big meeting? Loki’s not trying to get a job at a nuclear reactor facility again, is he?” Heimdall added a few rolls to his plate, but then looked up when his mother didn’t laugh. When he saw her worried expression, he rested his plate on the counter.

“There’s been a development.” She paused, then moved nervously to the counter to spoon a few pieces of chopped fruit onto her plate. “I fear we don’t have as much time as we’d thought. Not nearly at all.”

She always had been something of a worrier, but Heimdall could tell by her stiff shoulder and the hard line of her mouth that this ran considerably deeper. He took a step closer to her and touched her arm. “Mother, what’s happened?”

Finishing his meal, Odin tossed his ceramic plate onto the stone tile coffee table and belched loudly as his utensils clattered onto the hardwood floor. Looking toward the kitchen to consider whether or not he wanted a third helping of roasted chicken with rosemary and mango — one of his wife’s more creative and appetizing creations — he caught sight of Heimdall and waved him over.

“Come on in, son.”

Frigga sighed loudly and hurried toward the coffee table. She picked up Odin’s plate, checking for cracks and then examined the coffee table for damage. “How many times do I have to tell you not to throw the dishware?” She picked up his fork, knife and spoon from the floor and wiped a few bits of food off of the floorboards with his discarded napkin. “I swear, you can take the god out of the Jutland….”

Odin laughed heartily and smacked his wife on the backside. She stood upright, scowled at him, then strode off toward the kitchen, shaking her head. Odin laughed harder, then thumped the flat of his fist against his chest as he belched again.

“Ugh!” On the other side of the room, his daughter Saga wrinkled up her nose, a near perfect imitation of her mother. “For frigg sake, Dad!”

Odin cleared his throat and wagged a stern finger in her direction. “Don’t take your mother’s name in vain, young lady.”

An eternal teenager, Saga collapsed back against the dark leather of the couch, her long light-brown hair falling forward into her face. “Whatever.”

Heimdall yanked the last leg off of one of the roasted chickens, grabbed a set of utensils and made his way into the rec room. He glanced out the wall of windows at the darkening night, always struck by the outline of the tall evergreen trees against the deepening blue blanket of night. But then he nearly tripped over his younger brother Bragi, stretched out on the floor.

“Sorry about that, man.”

The younger god just rolled his eyes and scratched at the back of his thick mane of dark hair. Stepping over Bragi, Heimdall sat on the low stone ledge of the fireplace, taking a moment to adjust the screen so that a stray spark from the roaring fire wouldn’t catch his fisherman’s sweater. It had taken Bragi two such accidents just in the last century to learn the same lesson. So much for the bard of the gods — poetic with words, clumsy with fire.

(CARE TO INTRODUCE THE OTHER GODS IN THE ROOM? TYR, THE LAWGIVER. MAGNI, MIGHT, THOR’S SON. FREYA AND FREYER. FULLA, IN SERVICE TO FRIGGA. MEILI, SON OF ODIN. SNOTRA, WISDOM. SKADI, WINTER AND THE HUNT. AND MAYBE LOKI.)

Bringing her husband a full stein, Frigga settled in next to him on the couch. She caught Heimdall’s gaze and raised her eyebrows at him, nodding slowly until he unfolded the napkin and tucked it into the collar of his sweater. What she didn’t see when she looked away was that he still wiped his fingers on his blue jeans after lifting the chicken drumstick to his mouth and taking an uncomfortably large bite.

Odin gulped at the beer in his mug, then held the container far away from his face. Grimacing, he stopped himself from spitting the liquid out of his mouth. “What in the name of the bloody house of mists is this?”

Frigga leaned close and patted his soft belly. “Light beer.”

Odin turned toward her and gave her a hard look. She returned the gaze, not flinching. Finally, he grumbled deep in his throat.

“For the love of Niflheim,” he practically spat, raising the stein back to his face and sniffing at the contents. “Diet freaking mead. Hardly fit for the likes of the chief god of the Vikings.” He looked sideways at his wife and narrowed his one eye.

Frigga propped an elbow up on the back of the sofa and rested her head against he palm, fingers disappearing into her short dark hair. “Well if you don’t like it, sweetheart,” she fluffed up her hair with her fingers, then rubbed the back of her neck. “You can always have no mead instead.”

Odin pursed his lips. He studied his wife as she smiled at him smugly. He’d never been a match for her stubbornness. He inhaled sharply and put the stein down on the coffee table, careful not to slam into onto the stone surface the way he wanted to. He leaned back against the sofa cushions and stared hard at the stein, then glanced briefly at his wife at his side. The stalemate had begun.

Thor leaned forward on the sofa opposite from the fire. He cleared his throat too loudly and then started picking at his bottom teeth with his pinky fingernail. “So, Dad, what’s this all about anyway?” He pulled his hand away from his face, examined the bit of carrot his nail had dislodged, then sucked the orange shred back into his mouth. He rested his elbows on his knees. “You said something about Berserkers.”

The rest of the room fell silent. Thor looked from one face to another, then fixed his father with a hard stare. “So let’s have it.”

Odin took a deep breath in and sat upright. “It’s true.” He nodded at Thor, then looked thoughtfully at the floor boards from a moment. “One of my students this morning awoke.”

Next to her sister Saga, Sjofn was curled up on the couch across from her father. She sat up, auburn curls bouncing on her shoulders, then titled her head to once side, brows furrowed. “Oh, come on. You’re kidding, right?”

Odin shook his head slowly. “I wish I were. But I’d recognize that look anywhere.”

The Berserkers had served him for centuries, wildly enthusiastic warriors who were undefeated in battle. Born mortal, they acquired magical and impenetrable protection when they awoke to the chief god’s service. Axes shattered to pieces when striking a Berserker. No spear could pierce their skin. But they also lost their minds in the transformation. The crazed Berserk warriors ran into battle with no armor — sometimes without any garments whatsoever — and left in their wake the bloodiest corpses men had ever seen.

It was a trigger in their DNA that called them into service, a tiny marker that not even Odin himself could recognize in one man or the next until it had been activated. Sometimes it was passed from one generation to the next within families, other times a Berserker would arise from a bloodline previously untouched by the warrior madness. Once awakened, a Berserker’s mortal life was over. He was literally insane with battle-lust and heard no voice other than his god’s. And when the need for his fighting was over, he passed easily to the Halls of Valhalla where fallen heroes feasted and caroused for all eternity.

The last time Odin had called upon the Berserkers was in his last battle with the Fenris Wolf, when he and the others had scarcely beaten back the final confrontation that would destroy them all. It had been nearly a millennium since they had defeated and bound Fenrir. Odin hadn’t seen a Berserker since, especially not in the New World.

Heimdall swallowed hard, forcing a half-chewed piece of bread down his throat. “And you didn’t call him?”

Odin looked at his son and slowly shook his head. “We were talking about some mathematics competition.” Odin sighed and relaxed back into the couch. “The kid was sitting there doing geometry problems, and then it just…. Happened.”

There was a pop from the fireplace as the burning wood cracked and shifted. Bragi turned his head and stared into the flames, firelight reflected in his sea green eyes and highlighting the golden cast of his brown hair. He tapped a finger against his dark corduroy trousers.

“I didn’t even know they still existed,” Bragi said at last, in a voice so low that most of the others had to strain to hear him.

Sitting on the fireplace ledge above him, Heimdall tapped Bragi’s knee with the side of his sheepskin boot. “Why would you say that?”

Bragi looked up at his older brother, then glanced quickly about the room. “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “I suppose I just always assumed they died out, with the last of the Vikings.”

Sjofn looked hard at her brother. “With the last of us, you mean.” She stretched strong arms over her head and shifted in her seat. “The last of those who worshipped us, anyway.”

Bragi nodded. All eyes turned toward Odin, but Thor stamped his foot on the floor and stood up. “There must be war brewing then.” His eyes lit up as he stepped away from the couch and began pacing back and forth behind it. “That’s the only thing that makes sense. And if the Berserkers are rising again….” He stopped in his tracks and held his open palms out before him, imagining the thunder bolts he used to trow. He clenched his hands into fists, remembering the feel of power in his fingers. He glance down at his father with an excited smile growing on his face.

“That means we may be rising again, too.”

A hushed murmur swept through the room, then fell silent. Saga crossed her arms tightly over her chest, while beside her Sjofn curled into a tighter ball. Bragi looked back again at the fire, and Heimdall stared out the window.

Meili clasped his hands together in his lap and looked at his father. “But there’s more that you’ve not yet told us.”

Odin took a deep breath. “The Berserker…. Paid me no heed.” He looked down at the floor. Vulnerability had never been the chief god’s strong suit, even in the more touchy-feely twentieth and twenty-first centuries where “real men” ate quiche and cried at chick flicks.

Thor’s shoulders sank. “How is that even possible?”

Odin shook his head. “This is what troubles me.”

On the divan, Freya uncrossed and re-crossed her legs beneath her in the seated lotus position she’d assumed since those few decades on the Indian sub-continent in the mid-sixteenth century. She straightened her spine and lifted her chin before speaking. “Someone’s been working magic, then.”

Raven-haired Snotra turned to face her niece. “Curious.” She titled her head, her eyes going out of focus as she considered Freya’s words. She nodded once, then glanced toward Heimdall. “What is the news from the forest?”

Heimdall pulled the napkin from the neck of his shirt and laid it across his plate as he set it down on the stone ledge beside him. He rubbed his hands on his thighs and lifted his shoulders. “I still haven’t found it. I feel like I’m getting close….”

Snotra shook her head. “What is the feeling in the forest?”

He knit his brows together, thinking. “I, I’m not sure. It feels like a forest?” He looked across the room at his aunt, but it was obvious he wasn’t giving her the information she was looking for. Heimdall sighed. “I don’t know. I was out there last night, hunting for the tree, and… well, it just felt weird. It’s nothing that I can put my finger on.” He turned again to look out the wall of windows at the night. He longed to be out in the woods again, hunting with Laika, even though they each had very different prey. Then a quick shiver ran down his spine, and he turned back sharply to face Snotra.

“There was a chill, not really on the air. It was something else. It felt like it moved right through me.”

Odin inhaled sharply, remembering the cold that had passed through him immediately before the Berserker had awakened. He felt Snotra’s eyes on him, and he looked up. “Yes, just before. What does it mean?”

Snotra considered a moment, then shook her head slowly.

“Some kind of meandering spell,” Freya offered. “Not direct, else there likely would have been some kind of confrontation with the new Berserker.” She raised her eyebrows in her father’s direction.

Tyr shook his head angrily. “There are people in this town working all sorts of magic all the time. It’s like Pagan central around here.” He reached down to make a slight adjustment to the tight waistband of his chinos straining against his rounded belly. “We’d be shivering ourselves silly day and night if very little spell gave us the chills.”

“Nordic magic then,” Freya conceded.

“And possibly from someone who knows the old ways.” Saga scooched forward on the couch and rested her elbows on her knees. “That would explain why you two felt it. But why not the rest of us? And what’s the point of waking up a Berserker?” She looked around the room. “Any of you see anything like that going on lately?”

She accepted the room’s silence as her answer. “Alright then.”

“Alright nothing,” he brother Bragi complained, crossing his arms over his chest. “That’s just one more question, not an answer to anything.”

Saga stuck her tongue out at him.

“Oh, real mature.” Bragi threw his hands in the air. “Would somebody please tell me just how a petulant teenager got to be the goddess of history? I mean, really!”

Saga pressed her back against the couch padding and snorted. “Yeah, right. You who can’t walk three paces without tripping over your own feet.” She tossed her hair back out of her face. “Twice.”

Bragi made a move to get up from the floor and go after his obnoxious younger sister, but Heimdall caught him by the shoulder and pressed him back down toward the floor.

Thor stood across the room, staring hard at Saga. Feeling his eyes boring into the side of her face, she turned toward him and raised her hands in the air. “What?”

He shook a finger at her. “Yes.” He nodded and slowly began pacing again. “Yes. The old magic is afoot. And if that kind of Nordic power is still strong…” He paced around the huge coffee table while the others watched. “If someone out there has been able to harness it, then we can, too.” He stopped by the end of the couch, next to his father, and turned to look at Saga and Snotra. “Couldn’t we?”

Snotra’s mouth opened, then closed again. It was Freya who answered him.

“Awakening a Berserker is a far cry from restoring a god’s strengths and abilities, cousin.” She leveled him with her gentle gaze. “It would be prudent to investigate precisely how this has come about before making attempts to harness it for any purpose.”

Thor sighed loudly and looked at the floor. Odin eyed the stein on the coffee table and started to reach for it, then remembered its less than satisfactory contents and leaned back again. Frigga caught his eye and smirked in quiet triumph. Odin shook his head at her, then looked up at his son.

“She’s right. I know it’s been difficult for you, but we need to remain focused on the issue at hand, to figure out exactly what’s happening and why, before we start dreaming of future possibilities.”

Thor turned to face his father, his hands balled into loose fists, but the mixture of compassion and stern warning in his father’s eye somewhat diffused his impatience. Shoulders drooping in temporary defeat, Thor stepped back over to the divan and sat down beside his brother, Meili.

Thor swallowed hard. “I apologize,” he said softly. “I just really, really hate my job.” He hated having to have a job in the first place, but that went without saying. He missed his thunderbolts.

Fulla got up from her seat near the fireplace and began clearing away the dishes. No one was eating any more now that the business portion of the evening was underway, and making herself useful was the only way she could keep herself sane in the midst of so much anxiety. She had always been so emotionally sensitive, much more so than the others. Fulla stacked Bragi’s and Sjofn’s plates on top of her own, then reached for the dishes in front of Saga, Freya, Freyer and Snotra.

Deep in thought, the others watched Fulla in silence as she collected the utensils from before her younger siblings and cousins. A natural empath, she was grateful for the quiet and for the busy brains. She had gotten better about controlling which feelings — positive and negative — she absorbed from those around her, but it was still a struggle in large groups, particularly when she was surrounded by such a collection of old gods.

“Thank you, Fulla.” Frigga nodded to her as Fulla crossed the floor to the kitchen carrying a stack of plates and utensils. Her pace slowed as she approached the large double sink against the far wall. She put the plates down on the white tile counter, coming to a complete stop as she reached for the sink faucet. Her hand hung there, mid-air, as the pieces came together in her mind.

Back in the rec room, Bragi tapped his foot against the leg of the coffee table in an ancient rhythm that even he could no longer place. Sitting beside his sister on the arm of the couch, Freyer broke the silence.

“Uncle Tyr is right about all the magic — real and recreational — being wrought in the area.” He paused to scratch the back of his slender neck. “And given that no one else but Odin and Heimdall has noticed anything out of the ordinary, I would hazard that this Berserker thing is thus far an isolated incident.”

Meili leaned forward in his seat. “Thus far…?”

Freyer nodded and opened his mouth to speak when Fulla appeared at the edge of the room.

“The tree.” Her voice had an almost dream-like quality as she stood before them, frail as a willow, gazing wide-eyed out the wall of windows at the tall trees beyond.

Startled, the others looked up at her.

“Yes, of course, we’re looking for the tree…” Magni dismissed her with a wave of his hand, but Snotra silenced him with a hard stare.

“Let her finish.” Snotra turned to look up at Fulla, still standing there as though in some kind of trance. “What about the tree?”

Fulla collected herself, rubbing her face quickly, uncomfortable to feel so many pairs of eyes focused on her, waiting. She took a short breath and kneaded her hands together nervously. “I mean, I think it’s the tree. The old tree, and the new tree. The timing of it all.”

Thor and Meili turned around on the divan to face her, and the leather squeaked beneath them.

Heimdall nodded in encouragement from across the room. “Go on. You’re talking about the cyclical regeneration of the tree.”

Fulla nodded and took a few tentative steps into the room. She glanced down at the divan, and Meili edged closer to Thor to make room for her.

“The last time we saw the Berserkers, the last time we felt such magic…” She took a seat beside her cousins on the divan. “That all happened when the last tree, the Vingolf Ash, was still standing.”

The Vingolf Ash had been the last World Tree to stand in the land of the Vikings, in the original home of the Nordic gods. It hadn’t been the original incarnation of the Yggdrasil, nor even the first or second incarnation after, upon whose trunk Odin had hung himself to access the great tree’s ancient wisdom, and then had sacrificed his right eye for the gift of the Runes, the written language that fostered peace and culture and brought magic into the world of men. The World Tree was the keeper of all knowledge and wisdom, and the unifying gateway to the Nine Realms. Odin and the others had guarded the Vingolf Ash fiercely, and thus preserved the entire world.

But it had been the last incarnation of the Yggdrasil in the Old World, and when the Vingolf Ash’s cycle came to a close and the tree died, it had been Frigga, the seer, who had led them all to the New World — more accurately, she’d led all the gods who cared to follow — to the birthplace of the next embodiment of the Yggdrasil here in this dark, wet region so much like the Celtic lands the Vikings had conquered. It had taken several decades, but they had at last found the young World Tree, the Sitka Spruce later called the Klootchy Creek Giant or simply the Sitka Spruce by the descendants of the Old Worlders who had come to settle the region. And the gods had been among them, watching over the World Tree.

Now that Yggdrasil had, too, come to the end of its cycle, had died, and had been reborn. Somewhere nearby. They just hadn’t found it yet.

“The tree is young again, vulnerable,” Fulla stammered. “The energies of this world, of all the realms, are in flux.” She got up on her feet again, stretching her arms out to her family in the mounting urgency she was having such a difficult time trying to convey. “No earthly magician would know of such things. It has to be one of us, one of the Old Ones.”

Heimdall’s eyes narrowed and he sprang to his feet. “For the love of Bilrost!”

The others turned to him in alarm. Heimdall made a small gesture of apology to his cousin, Fulla, then ran a tense hand through his thick mane of hair. “I should have made the connection sooner.” He rested his hands on his hips and looked squarely at his father. “She’s right. It is one of ours. It has to be. Someone took a chunk out the Sitka Spruce, just within the six hours or so.”

Tyr slid forward on his chair, his round belly hanging out between his knees. “What do you mean, took a chunk out of it?”

Heimdall held his hands out in front of him, about a foot and a half apart. “A decent sized section, about this big, had been sawed clean off.”

Odin frowned at his son. “And you did not offer this information right away?” he bellowed more than questioned.

Heimdall held his hands up in surrender. “I thought it was probably just a bunch of kids. The remains of the tree still attracts a lot of visitors. Some of them want souvenirs.”

Magin’s face flushed red. “And you were not there to protect it?” His temper was only slightly less fiery than his father, Thor’s.

Heimdall turned on his nephew sharply. “Hey, I’ve been out looking for the next Yggdrasil, okay? Without any help from the rest of you, I might add.”

Snotra rose to her feet and held up her hands in a placating gesture. “Boys, let’s please remain focused.”

“You tell ‘em, Aunt Snotti,” Bragi offered from the floor.

Snotra turned on her nephew and scowled. “I have asked you repeatedly not to call me that.”

Bragi shrugged weakly and looked away. “Sorry,” he whined, completely insincere.

Wide-eyed, Sjofn leaned across her niece Saga to tap Freya’s shoulder. “But with wood taken from the old World Tree…”

“Used to work the old magic…” Freya continued her aunt’s thought.

“Runic magic.” The room turned to find Fulla wringing her hands on the end of the divan. “It’s true. I know it’s true.” She looked up at her kin around her. “One of the old gods is working this magic. One of us is after the young tree.”

Chapter 003

Thor could feel the steam pouring out of his ears. He imagined himself as some unfortunate fool in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, crouched down on the floor next to the photocopier machine, parts scattered across the low-pile carpet, his uniform gray trousers covered in toner.

He cursed in unintelligible syllables under his breath. The toner cartridge had come apart in his hands, again. Just as other cartridges had done every day thus far this week, and twice just this morning. Whether he was too strong or simply too impatient for such menial work didn’t matter. He sucked at it either way.

Thor pitched the broken cartridge into his canvas utility bag and wiped his hands across his shirt — streaking black stripes across the white polyester fabric — before pulling out a new one. He took a deep breath, trying to remember the relaxation mantra his mother had taught him. He’d burned through six jobs in the past two years, and needed to keep his cool. The others had gradually found a way to make peace with their more mundane lives and the need to earn a living, but getting and keeping a job had not come easily to Thor.

He was having the most difficulty adjusting to the life of an ordinary guy — except perhaps for Loki. His historically mischievous uncle had practically had to go underground, unable to cope with the rapid technological advances of the last century or so. It had started with a few blown out light bulbs and sewing machines, but quickly escalated over the ensuing decades. It was entirely possible Loki had been unintentionally responsible for the 1963 Chicago blackout, and Tir had nearly blown a gasket at his own Superbowl party this year — as soon as Loki got within five yards of Tir’s new 50-inch flat-screen plasma TV, the display had fizzled out entirely with just a puff of smoke.

“Peace,” Thor whispered to himself, eyes half-closed and head bowed. “Peace.” An odd choice of mantra for the god of thunder and lightning, but it got the job done. He took another breath, opened his eyes, and ever so carefully peeled the plastic wrap off of the fresh toner cartridge and gingerly slipped it into place inside the machine. When the cartridge didn’t want to click into position, Thor visualized a cool waterfall gently pouring restorative waters over his head and down the back of his neck. He reached deeper into the machine and gently pressed down on the cartridge, smiling in a deep mixture of satisfaction and relief when he heard the familiar click of the plastic snapping into place.

“There now,” he said to himself as he leaned back away from the photocopier. “Piece of cake.”

Thor nearly broke into a celebratory smile, and then surveyed the litter of photocopier parts strewn about him on all sides — parts he’d unceremoniously ripped out of the machine trying to get to the malfunctioning toner cartridge in the first place.

“Bloody godless hell.” Kneeling on the floor, Thor pressed his palms down on his thighs, jaw clenched. What he wouldn’t have given for a thunderbolt, just one — one big enough to obliterate all photocopier machines across the globe, any factories that might manufacture more of them, and the person or persons responsible for their invention in the first place. Was that too much to ask?

He picked up a small, odd-shaped plastic part in toner-smeared fingers and rotated it first left, then right. He had no idea what it was or where it was supposed to go. He’d have to consult the manual, a massive six-inch three-ring binder packed full of enough useless diagrams and miniscule print to make the old god’s head hurt.

He hated having to consult the manual.

Thor reached into his utility bag and hefted out the cursed vinyl binder, but the pager clipped to his belt went off just as he’d flipped it open to the index. His father’s four-digit code flashed on the electronic display, and Thor heaved a sigh of relief. Maybe there was a crisis — a forest fire, a flash flood, a small village being harassed by a troll — anything to call him away from 9-to-5 photocopier hell.

Scrambling to his feet, he clipped the pager back on his belt and thundered down the hallway toward the call center’s front desk desk. The middle aged receptionist was waiting for him.

“You need something, hon?” she smiled up beneath thick glasses. “From the sound of you storming down that hallway, I’d bet that machine’s giving you one bear of a time.”

Thor rested one hip against her desk and forced a more pleasant expression onto his face. His mother had warned him against needlessly — accidentally — upsetting or frightening the humans. “I’m just a big guy,” he shrugged. “Kind of hard for me to not make a ruckus.”

The receptionist raised her eyebrows and looked him up and down appreciatively. “I’ll say.” She dropped a collection of file folders on her desk and lean toward him. “Can I help you with something, or what?”

Thor took a step back and gestured toward the plastic box attached to his waist. “Yeah, I just got paged. Can you get me an outside line.”

She nodded and pointed toward a telephone on a low table near the window, next to an upholstered chair and a tall plant that had both seen better days. “Just dial 9, hon.”

Thor practically tiptoed across the carpet, trying to be less obtrusive. He wiped his hands across his shirt again before picking up the phone, but still managed to smudge the white plastic with black toner. He hit 9, waited for the dial tone, then punched in Odin’s number.

“Dad? I got your page.” Thor looked over his shoulder and smiled at the receptionist, who made no attempt to disguise that she was eavesdropping.

Thor heard a shuffle of activity on the other end of the phone as his father closed the door to his office and sat down behind his desk.

“We’d like you home tonight for a family dinner.”

Thor sat down in the upholstered chair — if you could call his hulking frame barely on the cushion edge sitting — and hunched up his shoulders, trying to gain some privacy from the receptionist just a few feet away.

“What’s going on,” Thor said in a low voice, lips practically touching the phone’s mouthpiece.

“We have a Berserker on the loose.”

Thor’s brows furrowed deeply. “On the loose? What do you mean, ‘on the loose’? Those guys answer to you.” He stopped himself, taking a moment to get his anger in check. He exhaled loudly, then continued. “I mean, are you sure? They haven’t been around for cen—” Thor felt the eyes of the receptionist on his back. “… Uh, for a long time.”

“I know what I saw,” came his father’s patient reply. We are convening at the family hall this evening. I’m counting on you to be there.”

Thor cleared his throat. He tried shifting his weight in the chair, but the squeal the frame gave let him know that splintering was imminent. He rose to his feet and rubbed the back of his neck. “Why don’t I just come over now? We’ll need a game plan for how to tackle this—”

“You will stay and finish your work. We will discuss and plan this evening.”

“Come on, I’m your right hand man. If there’s really a Bers—… If there’s really one of those out there, we need to get on this.” Thor ran a big hand through his thick, blond hair, now tinged with both a bit of gray and toner ink. “How could such a thing even happen to begin with?” An electronic whine interrupted the call, and Thor relaxed his grip on the handset.

“Son.” Odin spoke in the slow measured tones he knew would cut through Thor’s impulsive excitement. “There is much to consider, and I will use this time to look more deeply into this matter and to marshall our forces. In the meantime, you have a job to do.”

Thor glanced quickly at the receptionist, still watching his every move, and turned his back on her. “Dad, so help me, if I have to deal with one more load error or paper jam….” He left out the part about having torn apart his current client’s photocopier and about having no idea how to put it back together again.

There was silence on the other end of the line. That was never a good sign. Thor sucked in his breath. “Or I could just stay here and get this job done.”

“Very good.”

Thor checked back over his shoulder, and caught the receptionist checking out his butt. She didn’t try to hide it, either, but gave him a wink and a flirty tilt of her head.

“I’ll see you and Mom tonight.” Thor replaced the telephone handset and tried not to grimace too obviously when he saw the deep dent his thumb had made in the plastic.

“Thanks.” He nodded quickly to the receptionist as he turned around.

“Anytime, hon,” she replied with a light sing-song in her voice.

Frowning, Thor shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his toner-covered trousers and trudged back down the hall to the photocopier.

*****

Slapping the steering wheel in time with the windshield wipers, Managarm pulled his dusty Suburban off of Highway 26 onto the short drive leading into the wooded park. The rain couldn’t have come at a better time — not that light, persistent sprinkle that a near constant in the Pacific Northwest in the fall and winter, but a chilly driving rain, one of the first of the seasons.

The Suburban sloshed through deep puddles as it curved into the parking area. Not another car in sight. Managarm smiled, shifted the vehicle into park, and shut off the engine. He sat for a moment behind the wheel, listening to the patter of rain on the metal hull of the car. Very much like the sound of the rain coming down on a newly built longhouse, before the roof had been lined with turf for insulation.

Before too much longer, Managarm thought, there will be longhouses aplenty, once again. Longhouses and fire pits and longships and raiders.

He pulled the keys out of the ignition and stepped out of the car into the pouring rain. His body shuddered as the cold water first hit him squarely on his bare head. Managarm reached back into the car and pulled out a wide-brimmed rain hat, pushed it down firmly on his head, and zipped up his fleece pullover. He reached down behind the driver’s seat to pull out a hack saw, then slammed the door shut. He made his way toward the wide wooden ramp leading up to where the sitka spruce used to stand, and grunted when he sank shin deep in a puddle, cold water splashing up over the top of his boot and seeping down into his socks to chill his skin.

He fought the urge to curse. Rain hadn’t been an issue for him before, nor cold, until more recently. They were all of them growing weaker, more feeble, prone to the elements like newborn goats.

“Fucking Odin,” he grumbled, finally giving into his bad temper. Reaching the ramp, his boots squished against the boards as he climbed to where the old tree had once towered. Thousands of visitors over the years had made this same trek west of Portland, to have photos taken beside the tree and touch its trunk. Small shreds of yellow caution tape littered the ground, left over from the spruce’s last days. Split open by a wicked wind storm, the 700-year-old giant had finally succumbed a year later when the winds returned. There was little more for the forest service to do at that point than cut down the ancient corpse.

Visitors still came to see the stump of the Klootchy Creek Giant, nearly 100-feet tall by deteriorating rapidly.

Managarm took a quick look around to confirm that he didn’t have an audience, then jumped down off the platform onto the soggy ground below, ducking down beneath the wooden barriers to approach the massive stump. He reached out and rested a palm against the remains of the tree and listened. After a moment, he shook his head and began to smile. There was no life left in the tree.

He took a few steps to either side, surveying the most accessible portions. He found a large knot toward the base and raised his hacksaw, getting to work. It was slower going than he’d anticipated, but then he’d never been a mortal before, sawing wood out in the rain. Hunched over, he cursed Odin and most every other member of the old pantheon with every stroke, as cold rain ran down the back of his neck.

The saw came to the bottom of the knot, and a round slab of wood eighteen inches in diameter and about three inches fell free to the ground. Managarm rested the saw against the base of the stump and weighed the wooden slab in his hands.

Yes, this would get the job done. This would do just fine.

He stood upright and stared at the bark of the stump, feeling a cold respect creep into his bones. It hadn’t been the tree’s fault that the world had come to this. The tree was a font of wisdom and power; it had no control over how it was used. This old shell of the tree was just one of many over the millennia, as the tree was born and took root, grew up tall and strong, and then ultimately died and rotted away in this endless cycle set into motion long before Managarm had ever come into existence. It was a major part of the grander scheme he sought to destroy.

Managarm pursed his lips against the cold rain. His blue jeans were now drenched and sticking to him. Cradling the wooden slab in one arm, he hefted the hacksaw over one shoulder and turned to head back toward the car, walking beneath the shelter of the walking ramp above.

He yanked open the door of the Suburban, whose rusty hinges protested in a loud, squeaking groan, and shoved the saw back behind the driver’s seat. He slid in behind the wheel, resting the round piece of wood on the seat beside him, and started up the engine.

The others would no doubt be hunting for the young tree, but they didn’t have his magic. They’d abandoned the old ways when it had become obvious their powers were in permanent decline. Managarm laughed, trying to imagine the mighty Odin and the others trying to live as humans, amongst the very rabble they had once dominated and ruled.

“Serves them right.” Managarm hit the lights and switched on the windshield wipers. He turned left onto Highway 26, heading back east toward Hillsboro, toward the Fred Meyer where he’d stop off for supplies for the night before disappearing again into the forest to continue his work.

And coffee. He definitely needed more coffee, to warm up, to keep going. He cursed his own body’s mortal stamina. Damned Odin and his meddling. They were all having to pay for the old fool’s hubris.

Chapter 002

Hair standing on end, Managarm blinked at the smoking chips of wood scattered on the charred ground before him. The campfire that had been roaring a few yards away to his right now sputtered and choked, threatening to go out.

Kneeling on the ground, he sat back on his heels and felt the last trickles of magick drain out of his body and into the earth, grounding his spell. As far as he knew, it had been centuries since any dark magician dared to scare up such forces, though he’d never needed to rely on such tactics himself.

Not until now.

The quarter moon drifted low in the morning sky, on its way below the horizon for another day. He had been forever chasing the sun and moon, charged with seeking destruction and chaos from the moment of his creation, whether he had liked it or not.

Sweat and smoke burning his eyes, Managarm reached for thursiaz, the triangular shape of the rune still a glowing ember in the charred wood chip, but as soon as he touched it, the wood crumbled to pieces beneath his finger tips. He had the same result when trying to pick up the chip smoldering beneath angular n-shaped rune uruz, and as soon as that one had disintegrated beneath his touch, the two remaining chips — inscribed with the runes perthro and nauthiz — lost their heat altogether. The glowing symbols disappeared, the chips becoming nothing more than cold ash.

Managarm scooped the ashes together and rubbed them between his bare hands, spreading black soot over strong, ruddy palms.

Moon-dog the Magician, he chuckled to himself as he knee-walked several paces sideways to stoke the dying fire. He was careful to keep the fire small, contained and far out of sight of any park rangers who might be out patrolling at this hour. No sense in attracting unwanted attention, particularly when he was still so vulnerable.

He sat back on his bum, stretching out his hands to warm them by the fire while the cooler temperature of the ground crept up his spine. He unzipped the collar of his fleece pullover and reached up to wipe the perspiration off his brow, smearing soot across his forehead. He laughed when he realized his mistake, then rubbed both hands across his cheeks, nose and chin, darkening the rest of his face.

“Managarm, the dark god,” he whispered to no one. He wiped his damp, sooty palms on his blue jeans and stared into the fire for a long moment. “And out of darkness, is born new light.”

He’d been almost afraid to say the words, as if some ancient curse might rise up out of the soil or swoop down from the trees to smite him for his sacrilege. He had just used Odin’s own tool against him. Granted, he had no idea whether or not it had worked. This had been just a test case, after all. But if any of the old gods had caught a whiff of what he was up to — if any of them had even remotely the wherewithal to detect him, much less to be able to do anything about it — there had been no indication in the past few months that he had been preparing and practicing.

Assuming this test spell had worked, Managarm still had to figure out what to do with the one or more Berserkers he’d just summoned. They weren’t a particularly patient lot — engineered for the express purpose of making war, violent mischief and other dark mayhem — and they would come looking for their maker.

If Odin didn’t get control of them first.

A shudder ran through his body. Fucking Odin, he cursed under his breath. The old fool who hadn’t been satisfied with the spoils and dramas of his warrior peoples, who’d gone soft and even sacrificed himself for greater understanding and wisdom — and to bring written language to the Vikings. As if the bloody Vikings needed to waste their time on education. With language had come record keeping, stable commerce, peace accords and even civilized government.

That had really been too much. Even if the mighty Odin hadn’t been able to foresee where the Nordic peoples were headed, he still should have put a stop to it all, once it became clear what was happening.

Managarm hadn’t exactly enjoyed being in charge of chasing the moon — after all, it was barely more productive than a dog endlessly chasing his own tail — but at least he’d had a purpose. He’d had a place in the Nordic pantheon, no matter how low his own position. Every day had been like the Halls of Valhalla, where fallen heroes enjoyed roasted meat, obliging women and bottomless steins flowing with mead.

He cleared his throat and spat out sooty phlegm into the dirt.

The runes. Odin’s obsession with the World Tree and harnessing its wisdom to enhance his own power in the nine realms and for the betterment of the cosmos. He’d never known when to quit. Nothing was ever enough for that stubborn old aesir. That had been the beginning of the end for the gods, even though it had take centuries upon centuries to cause any real inconvenience.

But now they were all scattered to the winds. Old gods without followers, powerless, with scarcely any belief in themselves left these days.

Managarm scooped up and handful of dirt and threw it at the fire. “Fucking Odin!” he screeched at the top of his lungs. The moisture in the soil sizzled in the fire as the flames danced, threatening to go out but then leaping up again. He rested back on the heels of his hands and sighed. He stared into the fire, too tired to even think about calculating his next move.

The wind shifted, blowing smoke into his face. Managarm coughed violently and scrambled on hands and knees to the opposite side of the fire. Not even the wind had any residual respect for an old god, albeit one of the lesser ones. In the next world, the one he would create, things would be different.

A lot different.

The tree was vulnerable now, a mere sapling. Managarm would go to the dead tree, fashion a new set of runes from its ancient corpse — to replace the disposable set he’d made on wood chips from Home Depot, and which he’d just burnt up in this latest spell. He would seize the young tree, make it yield its secrets to him. It would lead him to the Fenris Wolf, the only creature in heaven, earth or elsewhere of truly and completely destroying Odin. Managarm would bind him to his will, dispatch Odin, take control of nine realms, destroy the planet and make himself a new one — with a new class of worshipping, blood-thirsty warriors, a race of passably intelligent elfkin to handle all the administrative details of running the cosmos, and maybe a couple of sea monsters and mermaids for entertainment.

But first, he needed coffee.

Managarm climbed to his feet and shook the dirt and ash from his clothes. He kicked dirt onto the fire to put it out, then stamped on the embers with his heavy work boots. The young sapling might well be in this very stand of trees, and a forest fire at this stage would be disastrous. Smokey the Bear had nothing to do with it.

He snaked his way back through the woods, careful to leave a maddeningly meandering trail for any who might attempt to track him, then hit the park’s main path and followed it back to the parking lot at the trail head. He nodded politely to a ranger who was filling a plastic brochure box attached to the 4×10-foot trail map stationed next to the trash cans and port-a-potties.

“Getting in a good hike before work?” The ranger took a sip from a steaming Starbucks cup.

Managarm sniffed at the aroma of coffee and felt his own irritability start to rise. “Something like that,” he called over his shoulder as he passed the ranger. He yanked open the rusty door of his gas-guzzling Suburban — always left unlocked, because who in their right mind would want to steal such a thing, particular when it reeked of eviscerated game — climbed in.

First stop, Starbucks. Second, to Home Depot to demand a refund on the sub-standard wood chips — they’d actually done just fine, but he was in a mood to argue and it was easy to pick fights with customer service reps. They might also buy him some time to figure out what to do with the Berserkers. Hell, he might even be able to sic one of them on the folks at the Returns desk. He needed some good entertainment.

Chapter 001

Odin sat down behind the wooden desk in the small room that served as his office. A mountain of paperwork overflowed from his plastic inbox, and a stack of telephone messages — nearly illegible in his secretary’s handwriting — sat neatly by the phone.

He took a sip of cheap coffee from his ceramic mug and grimaced. The first sip was always the worst. He’d never gotten used to the taste of the stuff, but had found coffee a very necessary evil if he was to get through the day, one day after another, one year after the next. He took another sip and forced it down.

The office chair creaked under his weight as he shifted forward to grab the stack of telephone messages. He sorted through the slips of paper, the creases across his broad brow deepening. A freshman’s mother had called concerned about her son’s daily homework load. The father of one of the school’s less than spectacular football players wanted to complain about his son being cut from the team due to poor academic performance. Odin took another sip of coffee then set his cup down with a bit too much force. Coffee splashed up over the side and stained the collection of maintenance work orders awaiting his signature.

The bell for the first class rang out in the hallway, yet Odin could still hear the driving bass of a car stereo in the parking lot outside his open window. He turned in his chair, raised his body just enough to reach the window and opened it all the way. He leaned out and looked down on the trio of students — two boys, one skinny and one not so much, and an overdeveloped girl with stringy hair — two stories below him in the parking lot, standing around a beat-up Mustang, both doors wide open to let the sound of car stereo reverberate against the surrounding buildings.

“Mr. Jamieson!” he called down to a scrawny dark-haired kid in a striped shirt and frayed jeans. The heads of all three kids snapped up to look at Odin in the window. “I know you wouldn’t want to be late to Mrs. Holbert’s English class again.”

The kid smiled sheepishly. “No, sir. I suppose not.” He reached inside and snapped off the radio, then reached for his backpack leaning against the car’s front wheel. His two friends shuffled off with obligatory glances in Odin’s direction.

Odin’s single eye narrowed as he watched the three head toward the school’s main entrance. Once they were satisfactorily out of sight, he turned back to his desk and sighed loudly as picked up the stack of messages again.

The next telephone message was from the pastor of the small church next door to the school, calling again to complain about students hanging out in the church parking lot and cemetery after hours.

Odin rested his elbows on top of his desk and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. He glanced at the clock from between his fingers and glowered. It was only 8:12 a.m., and his head already hurt. Adjusting the patch over his right eye, he reached into a side drawer of the desk and pulled out a small bottle of aspirin, shaking two pills out into his open palm by rote. He opened his mouth and tossed the pills to the back of his throat, swallowing them down with a big gulp of awful coffee. He dropped the bottle back into the drawer, wondering if the chalky bitter taste of aspirin might actually be an improvement to the coffee.

Balling up the telephone messages in his fist, Odin reached for the phone and had started dialing the irate pastor when his secretary buzzed in.

“Principle Wyatt?”

“Yeah,” he groaned back.

“We have Kyle Mackey and Trevor Chase here to see you. Again.” The resignation in the young woman’s voice almost made Odin smile. Kyle and Trevor — aka the Hooligans — had been in and out of his office nearly every week since the semester had begun. Odin hadn’t yet made up his mind how deep of a soft spot he had for the kids who couldn’t ever seem to do anything right. In the old days, he would have just knocked their skulls together and let them sort themselves out, else face his wrath. And that was on a good day, when he felt inspired by the off glimmer of patience.

“Right.” Odin got up from his desk, frowning at the creaking of knees and popping of spine. Each year his hair grew a little grayer, his joins slightly more stubborn, his posture a bit more stooped. He was getting old, and he did pretty much everything he could to not think about it.

Odin pushed his rolling chair away from him, and it slammed back into the wall behind his desk. He smiled at the crack of metal and plastic against the cement blocks. He might not be much of a god anymore, but he could still throw his weight around.

He crossed the linoleum floor in a few large strides, grabbed the dented doorknob in a meaty hand and pulled open the door. Standing in the doorway with just a hint of a raised eyebrow over his one good eye, Odin looked down on the Hooligans seated against the wall. Dressed in metal band t-shirts and oversized blue jeans, their expressions appeared somewhere between affected cynicism and facing a firing squad.

Odin crossed his arms over his chest. He knew there was a rumor circulating that he used to be a pirate. Last year, the rumor was that he’d lost his eye while on a mission in Central America as a mercenary soldier. He’d rather enjoyed that one. Maybe next year he could get a story going about getting his eye knocked out during an ultimate fighting match. Odin took in a deep breath and leaned against the doorjamb. “Boys.”

The two looked up at him from beneath lowered brows, and Odin’s mood softened.

“I’m not even going to ask.” Odin stood upright and took a few steps into the room to stand by his secretary’s desk. He titled his head toward her, never taking his one bloodshot eye off the boys.

“Call in their parents. We’ll sit down together and sort this out.”

The boys before him physically deflated. Yes, calling the parents was frequently the worst possible punishment. At least, it should be.

Odin felt a familiar rumble in his midsection and felt for coins in his trouser pocket. “Miss Metcalf, put these two in the conference room until their parents get here.”

“Yes, Principal Wyatt.” The pretty redhead got up from her desk and gestured toward a side door. The boys made no move to comply, until Odin gave them a hard, questioning look. Kyle shrugged his shoulders and got up from the metal chair. Trevor followed. The boys dragged their book bags across the beige carpet, passing by Miss Metcalf’s desk, where Trevor offered an attempted smile.

Odin moved passed them and opened the door onto a mostly empty hallway. A few students moved passed, either running full speed toward classrooms — and skidding to a stop in their tracks when they caught sight of the principal and his one wary eye (that always gave him a good chuckle) — or ambling slowly toward the music room or library. Odin headed down the long main hallway and turned to descend a double staircase to the basement, where both the science labs and vending machines were housed. Odin had always wondered about that curious combination, but then always reminded himself that he didn’t really want to know.

Approaching the vending machines, Odin reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a handful of shiny silver-colored coins. He stopped in front of the trio of machines, pretending the survey the contents when what he really wanted was a leg of lamb, roasted on an open spit, accompanied by a steaming bowl of fish stew, a hunk of bread and a heavy stein overflowing with rich dark mead. His stomach churned and he got a sour taste in his mouth looking at the rows of ju-ju bees, cheese flavored crackers and chocolate candy bars behind the glass in front of him.

“These people,” Odin grumbled under his breath, “have no idea how to eat.” It was no wonder they were so weak, their children prone to bouts of depression and uncontrolled tempers. He slipped a few coins into the slot and watched one of the silver screws behind the glass go to work loosening a bag of pretzels from the display.

Too much mindless entertainment, he thought silently. Not enough time exercising their bodies, as well as their brains. When he had been in power, he would have crushed such a people as easily as flattening an ant beneath his boot. But now he was one of them, traveling alongside them on the highways, picking out apples and potatoes from the same produce section, overseeing the education and discipline of their children.

Odin snorted as he tore open the bag and shoved a few pretzels into his mouth. Discipline indeed. What those boys upstairs in the conference room needed was a solid hide-thrashing, followed by a week-long hunt with their fathers, or perhaps a season of solid work on a fishing vessel.

He stepped to the left, fished out a worn dollar bill from his pocket and fought to get the drink machine to accept it. Stupid western technology often didn’t even recognize its own currency. “You mother disgracing sow of a machine,” he muttered. “You should be so lucky as to serve the chief of the gods.”

A smile played on his lips beneath his graying beard as his dollar was at last accepted. “Credit: 1.00” the electronic display read. Yes, a postured threat often went quite a long ways with such machines. Odin punched a button and claimed the cola can that had been spit out.

He cracked open the soda can and took a long sip as he turned to gaze down at the informal student lounge area — a vinyl love seat and a few chairs crammed into an alcove — a few yards away. David McAllister, studious as always, sat with a textbook balanced on one knee, an open notebook on the other and his book bag between his knees.

“Mr. McAllister.” Odin pursed his lips and strode toward the fourteen-year-old, taking note of the stack of library books by the boy’s side.

David barely looked up from his work, the vinyl furniture squeaking as he shifted his weight. “Hey, Principal Wyatt.” He scribbled some more into his notebook, then rested his pencil on his thigh.

“Last minute homework?” Odin took another sip of cola and swallowed a burp. That had been a difficult trick to learn, after centuries of celebrate, manly belching at the banquet table. People here were just as likely to fear their own bodily functions as they were to blink their eyes.

The corner of David’s mouth ticked upward, then immediately settled down in meek apology. “Umm, no… I’m just getting some extra practice in before the math contest this Saturday.”

Odin nodded thoughtfully. “Good job, son. You make us proud, eh?”

Another smile-like spasm played on David’s mouth, and the boy bent down again over his notebook. He tapped his pencil against the paper and bobbed his head, silently running through the rules of geometry.

Odin watched him a moment more and was about to turn away, when a bitter chill flew toward him from the far end of the hallway, passing through his massive body, sending a shiver down the old god’s spine and condensing the moisture in his nostrils. He rocked on his feet, regaining his balance, then was struck by David, suddenly sitting straight up on the love seat. The child stared ahead blankly, the books sliding off his lap onto the floor with a thud that echoed against the concrete walls.

Watching the boy, Odin felt the fire ignite in his slight frame. David’s eyes came alive, glinting with a dark madness Odin hadn’t seen in centuries. The boy stood up, his eyes deepening as he played at staring down Odin. Then he walked past his principal, leaving his books behind as he headed toward the fire door. David pushed on the lever and threw the door open, not so much as slowing when the alarms began to sound.

That was the closest Odin had ever come to wetting his pants — or robes, or whatever he happened to be wearing — in his entire existence. There was no mistaking it. He’d just seen a Berserker, here in 21st century Portland, Oregon, awaken. And he’d completely dismissed Odin.

Chapter 000: Prologue

Heimdall moved through the the forest, silent as a wolf. First one step then another. He hastened his pace through the darkness as he hunted, the hooting owls and chirping cicadas providing the rhythm for his chase.

Seven nights he had been on this trail. Seven nights he had failed — himself, his father, the world.

He felt the stars above him, ancient heroes and gods older than even he looking down on him, pushing him forward.

The tree was everything.

A snap of a twig off to his left. Heimdall stopped short, resting a hand against the rough bark of the evergreen at his side. He deliberately controlled his breathing and crouched low, sniffing on the air like a true predator. He placed his palm flat against the cool earth and dusty pine needles on the forest floor, and listened. Like a wiretap on a phone line, he heard the trees talking to each other, meandering conversations about rainfall and nesting squirrel. He heard the rapid hearts and lungs of the rabbits in their burrows, and the rhythmic lumbering of a trio of possums.

The steady, slow heartbeat of the earth below it all — both a comfort and a reminder of the stakes of his quest.

Heimdall lifted his chin and sniffed again, searching for a trace of what creature had snapped that twig. But there was nothing.

He was about to rise, then pressed his palm more forcefully against the soil. He closed his eyes, frowning as he strained to wade through the cacophony of vibrations passing up through his skin, looking for that one familiar beacon.

His face relaxed. Ah, there it is. Filtering out the noise of the other creatures, plants, elementals and various pixies and fairies, Heimdall homed in on the small, vulnerable pulse of the young sapling.

He was getting closer.

Heimdall regained his feet and said a silent prayer to the heavens above. Odd for a god to pray. He batted away the fleeting thought as he would a pesky mosquito simple or audacious enough to disturb him. Yes, he was now prone to prayer. It was something that had crept up on him over the centuries as his own strengths had begun to wane. It had brought him comfort, sometimes even sanity, as he felt himself grow weaker. Now he was little more than the mortals he and his kind walked amongst.

The last words of his silent prayer passed his lips, and he stepped forward into the darkness once more. He deliberately didn’t think about who or what he might have been praying to.

His path led him into a clearing of trees, and Heimdall slowed his pace as he stepped into this place of power, a natural temple untouched by any human hand. He strode into the center of the circle, watching the shadows cast by the quarter moon overhead, knowing they concealed the movement of supernatural beings he no longer had the reliable ability to detect.

Heimdall stretched his arms up over his head, preparing to call down the subtle powers of the night — even if it was more of a symbolic gesture nowadays than a real divine act. He spread the fingers of each hand wide, then cringed downward as a dark chills danced across his shoulders. Straightening his spine, he breathed in sharply, trying to catch the scent of the intruder as his eyes darted left and right, unable to as keenly penetrate the darkness as they once could.

An owl cried out to his left, and Heimdall spun on his heel to face the noise. He could hear his own heart pounding in his ears, his body’s fight response still strong.

Was the hunter being hunted?

He smelled fear on the air and could almost taste the terrified heartbeat, just yards away from him now. The shrill chatter of a surprised chipmunk, which should have been in its nest at this hour fast asleep, was interrupted by burst of movement through the low shrubs, and the chatter became a high-pitched shriek, cut short by the quick snapping of jaws.

“Laika,” Heimdall called into the woods.

The bushes shuddered as the head of the wolf-dog emerged, her downcast eyes sparkling with a mix of guilt and pride over the small, bloody prey still warm in her open mouth. Stepping out into the clearing, she cocked her head to the side and studied the stern expression of her master. With a labored sigh, she dropped the furry body onto the ground and sank down beside it. Looking up at Heimdall, a shiver of a hopeful wag ran through her tail.

Heimdall growled deep in his throat. “I told you this was no hunting expedition, not for that kind of prey.”

Laika nosed her kill closer to her master. Her mouth fell open into a silly grin.

Heimdall couldn’t help but laugh. “No, you can have it. But no more.” He wagged a finger at her and watched her carefully pick apart the tiny chipmunk with the patience of a sport hunter, rather than a predator who hunted for food.

He sighed. He was still uncomfortable with the luxury and convenience of this world. He longed for the days of testing and survival, of true warriors and blood-soaked battles, even if living among these so-called more evolved humans had softened him.

Heimdall shook off the chill that had stymied his ritual. He didn’t kid himself about it being the cool, damp air of the Pacific Northwest or the approaching autumn’s frost. There was another presence here in the woods, another hunter after the same prey. Heimdall deliberately ignored it, and bent down to pat his dog on the head instead.